The #1 (and most overlooked) Rule of High Impact Training

Location, Location, Location.

It's the #1 rule in real estate, and it's often the most overlooked.
You can change the structure of a house. You can remodel a house. But you cannot move it.
Purchase a home in an undesirable location and you have most likely made a significant mistake. Nothing has a greater impact on your home's value than location. If your home's location is less than desirable, your options are limited. Often, foreclosure is the only viable alternative.

Because the #1 rule of training has also been grossly overlooked by most practitioners, it is no surprise that many aspects of training are in "foreclosure."

• Training budgets decreased by an average of 11% from last year


• Training hours decreased by almost 50% from two years ago


• Overall training spend across companies decreased by 14% from the previous year


• The size of internal training staffs were cut by 5-8%

As one customer put it, "We need to learn a new language and change the game."

Read more about the #1 Rule of High Impact Training...

About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

How to Ensure On-the-Job Adoption and Impact

Is your training program making a difference?

Assuming that your initiative is relevant to the business, the target audience, and their supervisors, the difference between success and failure is often on-the-job adoption and impact.

According to most research, current training programs are woefully inadequate when it comes to providing the processes, tools, and support required to transfer the training, skills and knowledge to the job. They are even more remiss when it comes to needs assessment, training measurement and providing targeted reinforcement for participants.

In order to produce tangible results, you must first be able to successfully answer the following key questions:

1. Are people using the new knowledge and skills?


2. How much of a difference are the new skills and knowledge making on the job?


3. What specifically should each participant and their supervisor focus on to ensure success through improved individual performance?

Being armed with quantitative and qualitative answers to these questions allows you to create the accountability, coaching, and follow-through required to ensure that your initiative is a true success.

Learn how to create adoption and impact for your initiative...

About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

3 Steps to Building a Smarter Training Budget.. One that Gets Approved

Organizations continue to spend billions of dollars each year on training and development for their employees - programs that typically fail to realize a transfer of training to on-the-job performance and tangible business results.
No wonder the majority of executives are looking at ways to aggressively cut training costs.

Under the auspices of helping organizations to effectively benchmark, align, and manage their training functions, much has been written over the years about training cost metrics.

While training cost information is certainly part of the equation, looking at costs alone (or even first) misses the point.

Building a smarter training budget is about much more than costs. Getting a meaningful budget approved and supported by an executive is about much more than cost metrics.

Unfortunately, we still find that many training budgets and training start and end with costs and efficiency - missing the most important and persuasive component altogether.
Discover the 3 steps to building a smarter training budget...



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Using Focus to Dramatically Cut Training Costs, Save Time, and Produce Results

Most corporate training programs are designed to improve 8-12 competencies over a one or two-day period.

This approach works great for training companies looking for mass customization, increased revenues, and high margins.

It does not work out so well however, for clients seeking to manage costs, make training relevant to the business and change critical on-the-job behavior required to make a true business impact.

In our experience, a laser focus on 2-3 core skill or knowledge gaps provides you with the greatest return on your investment.

A concentration on only the most meaningful areas allows you (and your participants) to spend less time and money on training while getting better results. It also enables you to more easily support on-the-job adoption and training business impact - the keys to success.

If you would like to know "What is really holding us back?" and 'Where should we focus?" in order to spend both your time and money more wisely, then...

Learn about training needs assessment best practices that help target what matters most...



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Research Report: Enhancing Sales Performance through Negotiation Skills

Our clients tell us that salespeople must embrace the art of negotiation to be effective both internally and with their clients.

Until now however, there have been few statistically sound studies that demonstrate the impact of negotiation skills on sales performance.

This study aligns with our belief that effective training must both change behavior and impact the business.

The sales negotiations research looked at 120 sales people in a large US-based Corporation and focused on 3 key areas:

1. Work Performance
2. Skills Improvement
3. Financial Impact

The study also highlights the 4 key skills that had the greatest impact on performance.

If you are thinking about best practices to improve negotiation outcomes, increase sales revenue / margin, execute strategic sales account plans, improve client relationships, or increase future business opportunities, then this research report is for you. View the Sales Negotiation Training Research Report.



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Sales Negotiation Training and Consulting that Works

The key to sales profitability often involves both selling effectively and negotiating a favorable outcome for both the buyer and the seller.

Our sales negotiation training and coaching solutions are considered the best in the industry.

We help move negotiating from an obstacle to an opportunity in order to build a deeper relationships with clients.

If you are looking to increase or hold margins while building long-term client relationships, our proven Sales Negotiation Training, Coaching and Consulting Solutions can show you how.



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Are Your Projects Starting Off On the Right Foot?

Up to 50% of critical projects fail. Some estimates have failure rates as high as 75%.

In our experience, project success or failure can often be attributed to how the project is initially "kicked-off."

At a time when most companies are counting on key projects to drastically reduce costs, quickly bring new products to market, and significantly increase the top line, it pays to ensure that your most strategic projects are set up to succeed right from the start.

We find that project leaders of unsuccessful projects frequently underestimate the importance of having clear goals, roles, time management strategies, responsibilities and processes before starting the "real work." We know, on the other hand, that investing in starting off on the right foot will exponentially improve your chances at improving project success while saving overall project time.

Fortunately, effective project kick-offs are as much about proper project definition and project planning as they are about providing the right team the necessary communication skills to get on the same page, with the right leadership support.

Learn more about kicking off and execcuting successful projects ..



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Leading High Performance Project Teams: The Art of Project Leadership

For projects to be successful, it is critical to pay attention to both the art and the science of improving project management skills.

While the science of project management includes the tools, methodologies, and practices to effectively define, plan, execute, and control a project, the art of project management performance refers to the "people side" of running a project.

As most experienced project leaders and team members have learned, the best plans, project assessments, tools, and technologies (the science) can crumble due to the pressures their teams encounter (the art) during complex and challenging projects.

Typically, these pressures manifest themselves as missed communication opportunities, ineffective meeting planning, unresolved conflicts, personality clashes, morale crushing internal organizational politics, unsuccessful problem solving, and poor decision making skills.

Don't let these common and costly challenges impede your project team's success.

Learn more about leading high performance project teams ..



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

What is Training RAI™? + Raising the Bar through Assessments

Even in this climate of tightened belts and increased analysis, more than 90% of training initiatives continue to fail.

If that sounds surprising, try to remember the last training session that resulted in measurable and sustainable behavior changec.

Then try to remember a session that quantifiably impacted revenue, costs, or productivity.

Does the fact that the great majority of training initiatives fail still seem so far fetched?

To help raise expectations and quality, our recent Q3 Poll highlights 4 critical success levers behind impactful learning initiatives and a positive TrainingRAI™: Relevance.Adoption.Impact.

Learn more about the Top 6 Questions to Ask ...


About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Training Needs Assessments Done Right

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, one in 12 older people are prescribed the wrong drug.

Misdiagnosis rates in the ICU or Emergency Department range from 20% to 40.

Unfortunately, the odds are much worse when it comes to improperly diagnosing skill and knowledge gaps. Regardless of the economic conditions, we find the lack of proper diagnosis appalling.

Most skill assessments are not only statistically invalid, but they are often implemented in a way that inhibits trust, decreases relevance, and wastes time.

We believe that the purpose of a training needs assessment should be to answer the questions: "What is holding us back?" and "Where should we focus?"

We also believe that training assessments should be customized to each unique environment, drive toward outcomes rather than simply seek opinions, and guide strategies by comparing skills to actual performance.

And from a purely practical point of view, we believe as well that assessments should be short, relevant, cost effective, and timely.

In addition to traditional interviews and focus groups, LSA Global offers three proven online training assessment options. With over 600 assessment and training measurement projects over the last 15+ years, we think you'll be pleasantly surprised with the speed, cost, flexibility, and value of these options.

Learn more about 3 Best Practice Training Needs Assessment Options...



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Are You Set Up to Hire "A" Players During this Buyers Market?

As unemployment soars, will your interviewing and talent management practices help you take advantage of the available talent?

Are you hiring the best candidates to help you weather the storm and take advantage of the turnaround?

Even with record unemployment and significant cost cutting, client requests for interviewing performance support have unexpectedly spiked in the last 6 weeks.

With thousands of quality people looking for work, how could this be? Shouldn't it be easy to cherry pick "A" players in these tough times?

Not counting the negative impact on team morale and employee engagement, the costs of a bad hire range from one to five times their salary. So it is not surprising that people would like help in effectively and efficiently sifting through the hundreds of applicants landing on their doorstep. Most companies and teams cannot afford to hire "B" or "C" players.

If you would like to know how your interviewing process stacks up to leading organizations, this complimentary 10-minute Interviewing Best Practices Health Check Analysis is for you...



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Are the Interviewing Odds in Your Favor in this Economy?

Unless you can count cards, your chances of winning at Blackjack are slim. In fact, on average you will lose at least $5 for every $100 that you bet. That is how casinos make money.

Unfortunately, based upon how most companies in America interview, they have better odds of beating the casino than they have of hiring the "A" players they desperately need to succeed. 

If you are using the typical "give me an example" behavioral interviewing questions that are easy for candidates to prepare for, you are at risk.

In a previous issue of the Harvard Business Review, Larry Bossidy, the past CEO of AlliedSignal, describes interviewing as "the most flawed process in American business." 

Based on over 25 years of experience in helping organizations improve competency-based behavioral interviewing skills and practices, we couldn't agree more. We also think the root of the problem is obvious and correctable.

Read the Behavioral Interviewing White Paper...


About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Are You Getting New Clients as Fast as You Would Like?

Getting profitable new clients has never been more important.

Our recent Q1 Sales Performance Poll shows that generating new sales opportunities is ranked as the highest priority by almost 4-to-1 as compared to other key sales challenges.

Savvy sales professionals do not delegate this task solely to the marketing department.

While there is much written about what to do once you are in a new sales meeting, there is little to help sales professionals get the initial meeting.


1. Would you like to create more new sales opportunities?
2. Are you having difficulty gaining initial client appointments?
3. Are your prospecting messages missing their mark?
4. Are gatekeepers stalling your progress?


If you are facing any of the above challenges, then we may have some solution selling training and sales coaching best practices for you.
Learn more about getting meetings with qualified new clients...



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Are You Doing What it Takes to Stand Apart from Your Competition?

If someone were to ask you, "What differentiates your company from its top competitor?"

1. What would you say?

2. What would a colleague say?

3. Most importantly, what would your customers say?

On the surface, many organizations appear to offer similar solutions. Certainly a quick look at most websites would suggest the same. And because, like your organization, your competitors are continually enhancing and expanding their offerings, the distinctions become even more blurred.

Ultimately, knowing a few key things can make the difference between weathering the current economic storm, capitalizing on sales competitive advantage, and failing.

Read more about Differentiating for Sales Competitive Advantage...



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Is Your Learning Solution Set Up to Succeed?

Over 50% of executives today are unhappy with the returns from their investments in learning.

Accordingly, it is not surprising that in tough economies, learning is often one of the first areas to be questioned or cut. In good or bad times, slashing training that does not have a clear business impact makes a lot of sense to us.

While it seems like common sense to ensure that learning investments are set up to succeed, we continue to be surprised that billions are spent each year on corporate training without any assurance that the money is being spent wisely. This does not mean changing all training to elearning because you have a travel freeze or because you want to reduce costs. While elearning can certainly be an effective medium, it means only doing training that makes business sense and setting it up to succeed - regardless of the approach.

Smart organizations make sure that they address ten key training best practice questions before launching any training initiative.

A proper assessment is more than a skill gap analysis. It allows companies to effectively initiate change, align stakeholders, customize solutions, predispose participants, guide coaching, set baseline metrics, target investments, and obtain buy-in.

Starting off on the right foot provides the foundation to save time, money, and reputations.  Find out where do you stand and How do you stack up?



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

The #1 Reason Training Initiatives Fail

Training by itself typically does not work. The difference between success and failure is often not apparent until it is too late.

When we talk to HR and training, they consistently tell us that learning initiatives fail for one of three reasons.

1. "Managers do not have the time for their people to be taken away from their jobs to attend training."
   
2. "We do not have enough executive support or budget to do this right. So this is better than nothing."
   
3. "We need to do a better job marketing and communicating what we are offering to employees so we can fill these classes. This is really good stuff."

Guess what? It is probably not "really good stuff." Business executives tell us that all three assumptions are largely incorrect.

Unfortunately these common statements reflect the #1 reason that business unit executives, line managers and new supervisors believe that training initiatives fail - a lack of ...Learn More

About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Leading for Employee Engagement - Igniting Accountability, Commitment and Change-Readiness

Did you know that:

• Over 70% of employees are NOT fully engaged


• Many CEO's are questioning if their employees have what it takes


• Lack of employee engagement costs US businesses over $270 billion dollars a year


• Increased engagement can lead to 2-3% increase in operating margin

It's easy to believe that your employees are engaged when they work long hours, you have low turnover, and the job market is in shambles. However, don't be deceived. People often put in long hours begrudgingly and top performers are always in demand. You need your employees' full effort to reach your targets.

Is there a way to help your people avoid disengagement given the reality of the business challenges that you face?

The answer is, yes. Our research-based Leading for Employee Engagement Program shows leaders how to create an environment in which employees are engaged in spite of the challenging times.

Download the complimentary Employee Engagement Best Practices White Paper.



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Employee Engagement Health Check - Are You Doing What it Takes?

Can you afford to have nearly 70% of your workforce complacent or actively disengaged? 

Unfortunately, recent studies show this to be the case across much of corporate America.

Another startling statistic: engaged workers are over 40% more productive and effective than their disengaged counterparts.

At a time when many companies are struggling to succeed with the "people left behind," those statistics are unacceptable to us. The good news is that the grim data on the lack of engagement may shine a light on an opportunity for you and your organization to increase discretionary effort and productivity, manage and retain talent, and come out of this economic storm stronger than you were before.

While Employee Engagement has garnered considerable interest in the last few years, we believe that most companies have not scratched the surface of the impact that Employee Engagement efforts can have on a company's bottom line.

Do you know if you are doing what it takes to effectively engage your employees?

Based upon over 20 years of research and data gathered from over 20,000 managers and 60,000 employees across multiple industries, we have identified the core areas that drive successful employee engagement.

How do you compare? Taking 10 minutes to complete this confidential and complimentary Employee Engagement Health Check could be the first step toward increasing productivity, retention, and profitability for you and your company.

Does Your Project Need Saving?

If you think that your project does not need help - think again.

Up to 50% of critical projects fail.

Are you doing what it takes to ensure that your key project management efforts succeed?

At a time when most companies are counting on key projects to drastically reduce costs, quickly bring new products to market, and significantly increase the top line, it pays to ensure that your most strategic projects are on the right track.

From our perspective, this means effectively problem solving and efficiently moving key strategies forward that significantly increase revenue and decrease costs.

Fortunately, a failed projects starts off as a troubled project. And the good news is that troubled projects can be identified and turned around before it is too late.

Learn more about LSA Global's proven Project Assessment / 27 Point Diagnostic Tool and start to identify and turn around troubled projects without delay.



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Managing Virtual & Remote Teams: What Works and What Does Not?

In today's dispersed world, almost every high powered team has an important virtual component.

The day-to-day challenges faced by teams that work together at the same location are well documented.

But issues teams encounter with remote or telecommuting members add an additional layer of complexity.

Remote team dynamics are greatly compounded by reliance upon more complex communication technologies as well as by the need to bridge time, geographic, and cultural differences.

Take steps to ensure adequate problem solving training resources are in place and don't let these challenges impede the success of your virtual teams and remote teams.



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Workplace Compliance: Health Check Analysis

In 2008, a harassment case resulted in an $18 million verdict against a large California company.

Is Your Company at Legal Risk?

It is a fact that when the economy hits a downturn, employee lawsuits increase substantially (as much as 20% per the EEOC).

For companies in California with more than 50 employees, 2009 is a compliance-training year.

Why? In 2005, California's AB1825 became law.

This law requires all managers/supervisors to take a two-hour training program every two years to prevent illegal sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation. It also requires all new managers/supervisors to take this same training within six months of their hire or promotion date. (CALIFORNIA GOVERNMENT CODE SECTION 12940-12951).

Who knows? Taking 5 minutes to complete this confidential and complimentary AB1825 Compliance Health Check could save you $18 million.



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Workplace Harassment: Your Compliance Options

If your organization does not comply with AB 1825, you have three options:

1. Take a Risk - do nothing and hope for the best


2. Take a Risk, Check the Box - find the cheapest elearning solution that may not qualify in court as a good faith effort nor effectively change behavior and see what happens


3. Contact an Expert - implement engaging, cost-effective, compliant, and interactive training that will decrease risk and improve employee relations

We offer proven and cost-effective options (both online and onsite) to help you and your organization become AB 1825 compliant while preventing harassment and discrimination charges.

Our instructors are seasoned attorneys, experienced trainers, and skilled facilitators who use real life situations, stories, and humor to make this potentially dry topic interesting, valuable, and memorable. 

Review Your Compliance Options

About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Can Your Leaders Weather the Storm and Come Out Stronger?

Now is when Leadership really matters.

In difficult times, leaders should have the skills and knowledge to not only weather the storm, but to help you and your company come out of the storm two times faster and two times stronger than your competition.

From our perspective, this means effectively and efficiently moving key strategies forward that significantly increase revenue and decrease costs.

Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to design, deliver, implement, and measure leadership programs that:

1. Do not hinder cash flow and pay for themselves
2. Provide measurable business returns
3. Deliver on your company's top priorities

This is not about "training." This is about running your business to weather the storm and come out stronger and faster than your competitors.

About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Does Your Leadership Program Stack Up?

Is a $13 million dollar return realistic for a one-year Leadership Development Program?

It certainly sounds far fetched. Yet those numbers are real. It just happened. Done right, it could also happen for you.

Many profess wonderful results from action learning leadership programs. When we looked closer however, the majority of the results were fuzzy at best.

Done right, Leadership Development should build current leaders. Done right, Leadership Development should build future leaders. Done right, Leadership Development should deliver tangible business results.

Get the Facts



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

Ensuring that your Salesforce Leapfrogs the Competition

Some of your key competitors will increase their revenue by more than 20% during this recession. If you are struggling with closing key deals, you probably find this statistic hard to believe. We were also skeptical - until it worked for us.

We were pleasantly surprised to find a simple and easy to implement sales methodology that allows a sales force to create trust, collapse the sales planning process, and close more than 50% of leads.

If you are not happy with your revenue growth, pipeline closure rate, or quality of leads, consider these statistics:

1. Clients who follow this methodology typically increase their qualified pipeline a minimum of 30%.


2. Clients who implement change using this approach usually increase their revenue by at least 20%.


3. Clients who embrace these proven training best practices spend over 90% of their time in front of qualified future clients that want to do business with them.

Learn more about finding your ideal clients and closing new business over 50 percent of the time with Referral Selling Best Practices...

About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

8 Steps to Recession Proof Selling

What the heck is going on? Each day seems to bring dire news of additional layoffs, missed forecasts, and unpredictable weather ahead.

With little visibility, many of our clients are certainly being cautious with a strong emphasis on increasing revenue, cutting costs, and doing more with less.

While companies that face failure must do what it takes to cut costs, we believe that you cannot "save your way to success." In order to succeed, companies must grow top line sales revenue and do more with less.

Top line business sales growth can and does occur during a recession. What are you doing to ensure that it happens for you?

Learn more about the 8 key steps to Recession Proof Selling.



About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned